This book identifies new formations of race, racism and ethnicity at the intersection of neoliberalism, security, urban governance and the law through a comparative, international analysis of police organizations and practices. It pushes analytical and theoretical boundaries by examining racialization and ethnicization in locations where the topic is politically taboo, such as in China, India and France, and where racial and ethnic hierarchies have supposedly been banished to the past, as in Bosnia and South Africa. This book also examines police and security services not as mere artefacts of state authority or the prerogatives of capitalist development, but as relatively autonomous and uniquely productive intersections of new kinds of state, social and cultural formations that are remaking race, embodiment, fear and control on their own terms. This book was published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.
Based on five years of ethnography, archival research, census data analysis, and interviews, Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries reveals how the LAPD, city prosecutors, and business owners struggled to control who should be considered “dangerous” and how they should be policed in Los Angeles. Sociologist Ana Muñiz shows how these influential groups used policies and everyday procedures to criminalize behaviors commonly associated with blacks and Latinos and to promote an exceedingly aggressive form of policing. Muñiz illuminates the degree to which the definitions of “gangs” and “deviants” are politically constructed labels born of public policy and court decisions, offering an innovative look at the process of criminalization and underscoring the ways in which a politically powerful coalition can define deviant behavior. As she does so, Muñiz also highlights the various grassroots challenges to such policies and the efforts to call attention to their racist effects. Muñiz describes the fight over two very different methods of policing: community policing (in which the police and the community work together) and the “broken windows” or “zero tolerance” approach (which aggressively polices minor infractions—such as loitering—to deter more serious crime). Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries also explores the history of the area to explain how Cadillac-Corning became viewed by outsiders as a “violent neighborhood” and how the city’s first gang injunction—a restraining order aimed at alleged gang members—solidified this negative image. As a result, Muñiz shows, Cadillac-Corning and other sections became a test site for repressive practices that eventually spread to the rest of the city.
"This book explores the relationships between racial segregation, urban governance, and policing in a postindustrial city. Drawing on rich ethnographic data and in-depth interviews, Gordon shows how the police augmented racial inequalities in service provision and social control by aligning their priorities with those of the city's urban growth coalition"--
This edited collection explores policing in America in regards to minority groups. The essays discuss how the relationship between police and minority groups affects politics, the economy, and minority groups’ daily lives and success. The contributors explore the Black Lives Matter movement, the Detroit, Los Angeles, and Atlanta Police Departments, immigration, incarceration, community policing, police violence, and detail causes, theories, and solutions to this important phenomenon.
The text includes both classic pieces and original essays that provide the reader with a comprehensive, even-handed sense of the theoretical underpinnings, methodological challenges, and existing research necessary to understand the problems associated with racial and ethnic profiling and police bias.
This book identifies new formations of race, racism and ethnicity at the intersection of neoliberalism, security, urban governance and the law through a comparative, international analysis of police organizations and practices. It pushes analytical and theoretical boundaries by examining racialization and ethnicization in locations where the topic is politically taboo, such as in China, India and France, and where racial and ethnic hierarchies have supposedly been banished to the past, as in Bosnia and South Africa. This book also examines police and security services not as mere artefacts of state authority or the prerogatives of capitalist development, but as relatively autonomous and uniquely productive intersections of new kinds of state, social and cultural formations that are remaking race, embodiment, fear and control on their own terms. This book was published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.
Winner, 2018 Law & Legal Studies PROSE Award The consequences of big data and algorithm-driven policing and its impact on law enforcement In a high-tech command center in downtown Los Angeles, a digital map lights up with 911 calls, television monitors track breaking news stories, surveillance cameras sweep the streets, and rows of networked computers link analysts and police officers to a wealth of law enforcement intelligence. This is just a glimpse into a future where software predicts future crimes, algorithms generate virtual “most-wanted” lists, and databanks collect personal and biometric information. The Rise of Big Data Policing introduces the cutting-edge technology that is changing how the police do their jobs and shows why it is more important than ever that citizens understand the far-reaching consequences of big data surveillance as a law enforcement tool. Andrew Guthrie Ferguson reveals how these new technologies —viewed as race-neutral and objective—have been eagerly adopted by police departments hoping to distance themselves from claims of racial bias and unconstitutional practices. After a series of high-profile police shootings and federal investigations into systemic police misconduct, and in an era of law enforcement budget cutbacks, data-driven policing has been billed as a way to “turn the page” on racial bias. But behind the data are real people, and difficult questions remain about racial discrimination and the potential to distort constitutional protections. In this first book on big data policing, Ferguson offers an examination of how new technologies will alter the who, where, when and how we police. These new technologies also offer data-driven methods to improve police accountability and to remedy the underlying socio-economic risk factors that encourage crime. The Rise of Big Data Policing is a must read for anyone concerned with how technology will revolutionize law enforcement and its potential threat to the security, privacy, and constitutional rights of citizens. Read an excerpt and interview with Andrew Guthrie Ferguson in The Economist.
The chapters in this volume examine the racial and ethnic landscape of Britain in a contemporary era of neoliberalism and financial crisis. A key aspect of neoliberal thought is the belief that we live in a ‘post-racial’ in which the problems of racism and xenophobia have been overcome. However, cultural retrenchment and coded xenophobia have been sweeping the political terrain, accompanied by ‘new racisms’ and ‘new racial subjects’ that only close contextual analysis can unpick. The scholarship contained in this collection challenges those who suggest that we live in a post-racial time. By focusing on particular locations in Britain at a particular moment, the volume explores local stories of ‘race’ and racism across changing sociopolitical ground. This book is essential reading for scholars and students of race, racism, diaspora, multiculturalism, post-colonialism, transnationalism and post-race. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.
A critical look at the realities of community policing in South Los Angeles The Limits of Community Policing addresses conflicts between police and communities. Luis Daniel Gascón and Aaron Roussell depart from traditional conceptions, arguing that community policing—popularized for decades as a racial panacea—is not the solution it seems to be. Tracing this policy back to its origins, they focus on the Los Angeles Police Department, which first introduced community policing after the high-profile Rodney King riots. Drawing on over sixty interviews with officers, residents, and stakeholders in South LA’s “Lakeside” precinct, they show how police tactics amplified—rather than resolved—racial tensions, complicating partnership efforts, crime response and prevention, and accountability. Gascón and Roussell shine a new light on the residents of this neighborhood to address the enduring—and frequently explosive—conflicts between police and communities. At a time when these issues have taken center stage, this volume offers a critical understanding of how community policing really works.
